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Computers

GE Debuts Vscan, the 'Stethoscope of the 21st Century'

One of the medical profession's most iconic instruments is getting a serious upgrade. The "stethoscope of the 21st century" was unveiled yesterday at the Web 2.0 summit by General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt. The Vscan, which looks like the lovechild of a Motorola RAZR and an iPod, places the power of ultrasound into the palm of a doctor's hand, and is set to increase the ease and effectiveness of the routine check-up.

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Web

Med Students Tweeting and Blogging Patient Details



Medical students learn a lot of things at school, but apparently, discretion may not be one of them. Fox News reports that a number of recently surveyed medical school deans said they know of students posting "unprofessional content" on sites like Facebook, Youtube and even personal blogs.

Whether intentional or not, this content ranges from alarming examples (identifying patient details on Facebook) to more minor ones (use of profanity). The survey's leader, Dr. Katherine Chretien of the Washington, D.C., VA Medical Center, told Fox News that the real problem is that most medical schools lack guidelines on what's acceptable for students to post online. According to the survey, 47 of the 78 participating deans were aware of such conduct, but only 38-percent of participating schools have a set of guidelines in place.

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Audio/Video

Holograms That Respond to 'Touch'

In the past, holograms served no real purpose. Sure, they've always been cool to look at, but that's pretty been it -- until now. Reuters reports that a group of Japanese scientists have developed technology that allows holograms to respond to human touch, opening up a world of uses for the 3-D images. The scientists at Tokyo University used ultrasonic waves and Nintendo Wii controllers to create a software program that not only tracks the movements of a person's hand, but also allows holograms to respond to the "touch" (or, really, non-touch) of a hand.

While the technology is still in its early stages, scientists hope to eventually use it for practical purposes. (Holographic controls on hospital machines, for instance, could replace easily contaminated physical controls.) So don't get too excited, geeks. This scientific development exists for the common good, not for you to act out those Princess Leia fantasies. [From: Reuters]

Computers

Nightmare-Causing Bloodbot Automates Bloodletting

Bloodbot Automates Bloodletting Causes Nightmares

Medical robots are nothing new to us here at the Switched offices. We've covered them before. But those robots haven't terrified us nearly as much as this, the Bloodbot.

The bot's form is a simple mechanical arm, equipped with a probe and needle. The probe feels around your arm for flesh that is relatively firm, betraying the presence of a vein. The Bloodbot then sticks you with the needle, waits for the subtle pop indicating a punctured vein, and then ceases its advance before it ruptures your vein (or, worse, your artery on the other side).

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Audio/Video, Web

Brain Injury Researchers Watch YouTube Videos for Trauma Research


YouTube's vast repository of videos offers video of just about anything imaginable -- from rare concert footage to gadget reviews. But, according to a report from the University of Kentucky posted on LabSpaces, brain injury researchers are using the site for something more noble: head trauma research. Best of all, they've actually made some concrete findings that could help coaches make safer decisions for their injured players.

The findings revolve around what Jonathon Lifshitz, assistant professor at the University of Kentucky Spinal Cord and Brain Injury Research Center, calls the "fencing response." After watching hundreds of hours of YouTube videos showcasing various head impacts, Lifshitz and his team noticed that, after a player suffered a severe blow to the head, his forearm would involuntary assume an "en garde" fencing position -- sometimes before he even hit the ground. (One of the videos watched is shown above.) Believe it or not, this behavior was noticed in rats as well.

Such a physical response indicates trauma to a part of the brainstem that controls balance. If left untreated, such an injury can lead to permanent brain damage and death. Internal damage is hard to assess by simply looking at a person, so if a player displays the fencing response after an impact, a coach should have her treated immediately instead of sending her back onto the field. Score one for YouTube! [From: U.K./LabSpaces]

Web

'Rorschach' Wikipedia Entry Angers Some Psychologists

Dr. James Heilman of Moose Jaw, Canada recently created a stir in the psychology and psychiatry fields when he posted to Wikipedia 10 inkblot images used in the Rorschach test. Relying on how an interviewee describes what they see in the blots, the blotchy images can supposedly reveal the workings of a human mind. The copyright on the images (published in 1921 by a Swiss psychiatrist of the same name) has expired, meaning the inkblots are in the public domain. Some threatened psychologists, though, believe that Heilman's actions may negate the secrecy and thus the effectiveness of the test, which has become a standard tool of psychological analysis.

According to the New York Times, the College of Physicians and Surgeons in Saskatchewan is now investigating Heilman because of complaints from two psychologists who claim that his actions represent "serious misconduct" and "disrespect." Heilman likened the investigation to "intimidation tactics," adding that the complaining parties are "trying to close the doors on scientific discourse."

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Cell Phones

'Teen Texting Tendonitis' the Latest Health Epidemic



Teens text way too much. We've gotten so used to outrageous stories here at Switched HQ that we were dismissive when we heard about 13-year-old Bailey Baker from Dallas, TX and her 8,000 monthly text messages -- after all, we've seen a different young girl send 41,000 messages in a month, and even one who claimed to send 300,000. So, 8,000? That's nothing.

That is until we learned that Bailey is suffering from what some have dubbed Teen Texting Tendonitis (or TTT), a fancy, unnecessary name for sore thumbs. As we've previously reported, your thumbs are not designed for tapping out messages on tiny keyboards. So it should come as no surprise that Bailey found herself suffering from back, neck, elbow, and thumb pain, as well as occasional numbness in her opposable fifth digit.

So now parents have one more reason to freak out about their child's texting habit: the medical bills. [From: CNN, via Examiner.com]

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Web

California Non-Profit Sells Weed via Twitter

It's a stoner's dream come true. California residents can get dope delivered straight to their doors. All it takes is a doctor's recommendation and a simple tweet, and, just like that, there's a doorbell ring and a dime bag waiting.

The medical marijuana delivery service, which is the brainchild of Artists Collective founder Dann Halem, aims to provide shut-ins with weed while using the profits to establish artists' grants, according to ABC News. The project, which began about 18 months ago, offers assorted strains (from Blackberry Kush to Baby Crunch) and a bounty of pot-infused baked goods via the organization's Twitter page. The best part is that the service is free, although drivers do appreciate tips.

While this creative effort is legal under California law, it's still in violation of Federal law. If the Feds stay away, though, similar services could spring up in the twelve other states that have legalized medical marijuana. After all, prescription drugs are already delivered to the front door. Now, if the Artists Collective would only deliver pizza, too... [From: ABC News]

Visionaries

Chewing Robot Takes Bite Out of Denture Trouble-Shooting

Dental technology has made long strides since our first president chewed away at his corn pone and salt pork (or whatever) with his notorious set of wooden (or ivory?) chompers. Since then, dentists have learned to replace God's own teeth with materials ranging from gold to porcelain. Despite those advancements, though, scientists haven't been able to come up with a sure-fire way to reliably and thoroughly test denture designs and materials, save for sticking them in somebody's mouth and watching intently.

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Teen Diagnoses Self in Science Class

Paging Dr. House. The stomach pain, vomiting, and fever that Sammamish, Washington teen Jessica Terry had endured for the past eight years stupefied doctors, forcing the high school senior to regularly miss class. Then, last January, Jessica borrowed one of her intestinal slides from her pathologist, took it to her A.P. Biomedical Problems class, and looked at it under a microscope. The problem, to her eyes, was clear.

According to Seattle's KOMO News, Jessica spotted in her intestinal tissue what she believed to be a granuloma -- a cell with a dark center that indicates Crohn's disease. After consulting with her teacher, fact-checking online, and then e-mailing the slide to another pathologist, Jessica had confirmation, a mere 24 hours later, that her intuition had been correct. She'd been afflicted those eight long years by Crohn's disease -- an autoimmune disorder that attacks digestive cells.

Even though Crohn's gets progressively more difficult to manage as the sufferer ages, Jessica is relieved to know what she has. She starts nursing school in the Fall, and has just finished penning a children's book on living with Crohn's. If she's half as intuitive a writer as she is a scientist, it'll be a best seller. [From: CNN.com, via KomoNews.com]

Visionaries

Heart Beats Outside Body With Help of Machine


Featuring a setup made of pipes and rods running in and out of a still-beating heart, a lab at North Carolina State University (NCSU) could be mistaken for that of a mad scientist. Researchers there have recently created a computer-controlled machine that can keep a heart beating outside the body, according to NCSU's Web site.

Researchers said they plan to use the machine (designed by NCSU mechanical engineering students) in conjunction with internal cameras so that they might be able to determine the best way to repair heart valves. Don't worry; researchers aren't using human hearts just yet. A local pork processing facility donates pig hearts for the betterment of medicine and science.

We hope this engineering marvel will help lead to some truly amazing medical breakthroughs. That said, we can't help feeling a little odd while watching the video. After all, the closest we have come to seeing a heart beat outside a body was when we watched 'Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.' [From: NCSU, via Neatorama]

Cell Phones

Doctors and Med Students Embrace Smartphones

Even though smartphones have been around for years, the exploding application scene (started by Apple's App Store) has transformed what was typically a business communication device into much, much more. Despite the surge in mobile entertainment apps, it's not all games: According to the Washington Post, roughly 64-percent of doctors in the U.S. use a smartphone, and many are using devices like the iPhone to look up drug interactions, view X-rays, and even stream music during a surgery.

Med school students are also getting in on the action, with Georgetown's medical school requiring students to own either an iPhone or iPod Touch (sound familiar?). Similarly, Ohio State University has promised to give each and every one of its 1,400 students an iPod Touch by this Fall. Catherine Lucey, Vice Dean for Education at OSU told the Washington Post, "It allows the residents and the students to ask questions at the bedside, and not rely on memory and not guess. They can actually sit with the patient if they wish and use a number of online sources."

There's pretty much an infinite number of uses a device like the iPhone could offer the medical field. With over 25 pages of medical-related apps on the App Store alone -- and the ability to link specialized hardware to the yet-to-be-released iPhone 3.0 -- you have to wonder if Apple had this planned all along. [From: The Washington Post]

Computers

MIT Researchers Show Off Wearable Blood Pressure Monitor

We've seen some wild ideas when it comes to blood pressure -- including, yes, underpants -- but this newest device, a small monitor attached to the hand, which can be worn 24 hours a day for continuous monitoring, strikes us as having the potential for extreme usefulness. The monitor works differently than regular old blood pressure cuff, using a method called pulse wave velocity, which measures the pulse at two points along an artery. Built by a team of engineers at MIT, this prototype could boast a lot of advantages over monitors, including its portability, its ability to see long-term patterns of rises and falls in pressure, and of course -- you wouldn't have to be at the doctor's office to use it -- which is bound to take a little stress out of the equation. The device is moving toward commercial production and Harry Asada, leader of the MIT team, sees the possibility for monitoring conditions such as sleep apnea in the future as well.

Computers

SimMan 3G Patient Simulator Will Undoubtedly Creep You Out


Look, we want the next generation of robot doctors to be as competent as possible; after all, it's them that'll likely be taking care of us when our fingers lock up and our cranium-housed SSDs finally fail. That said, we can't help but be freaked completely out by Laerdal's latest and greatest patient simulator, the SimMan 3G. This almost-human can be programmed with various practice scenarios for to-be doctors to hone their skills on, and as any sophisticated mannequin should, this one is also wireless, self-contained and able to withstand four hours of surgery before conking out. We have no clue how many thousands this thing will set HOSA clubs around the nation back, but anything that bleeds, winks, and secretes shouldn't be something you "buy," anyway.

Computers

European Parkinson's Patients Receive Implants to Help Alleviate Symptoms

St. Jude Medical's announced that patients from Austria, Germany, and Greece are among the first to be implanted with Libra Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) devices to alleviate the symptoms of advanced Parkinson's Disease. Specifically, it's able to reduce akinesia, rigidity, tremor, and motor complications associated with taking levodopa.The company's touting Libra and LibraXP as having the longest-lasting battery of any DBS in their class, meaning potentially less surgical procedures needed for for when they gotta be replaced. No word on when they'll be expanding use of the device, but we're sure it's coming.

[Via Medgadget]

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